Editing The Pen Addict 109/transcript

{{Infobox podcast transcript
| name            = The Pen Addict
| number          = 109
| title           = I Have Colors!
| date            = June 4th, 2014
| hosts           = [[Brad Dowdy]]<br>
[[Myke Hurley]]
| guests          = [[Ana Reinert]]
| link            = [https://www.relay.fm/penaddict/109 Episode 109]
| audiolink       = [https://www.podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/traffic.libsyn.com/thepenaddict/penaddict-109.mp3 Audio Episode 109]
| length          = 82
}}

== Podcast Intro ==


'''Brad Dowdy:''' Hello and welcome to episode 109 of The Pen Addict podcast, a show where we discuss pens, paper, and all the analog tools we love so dearly. I'm Brad, The Pen Addict, some of you may know me, and this isn't my normal position. Normally, this is Myke doing all this intro business, but he's off gallivanting in San Francisco for the WWDC conference, so I have my good friend and everyone's favourite podcast guest host, Miss Anna Reinhart from The Well Appointed. How's it going, Anna?

'''Anna Reinert:''' How are you?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Good.

'''Anna Reinert:''' Thanks for having me on the show again.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' It's been too long, I feel like.

'''Anna Reinert:''' Well, we fixed it now.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yes, we have fixed it now. And I've actually had people telling me, you need to get Anna back on, you need to get Anna back on. And I was like, well, just hold your horses, because I have this perfect week coming up where I need a full-time podcast partner, not just a guest appearance. So I appreciate you doing this. Was it last year at this time we did the exact same thing? I wonder if...

'''Anna Reinert:''' I bet it was. I bet it was.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' I bet it was, because Myke's not home in London. He's in San Francisco, so he doesn't have the time or availability to record. So it's great to just be able to bring you on and just do a full show with you and I. I give everyone a break from Myke, I think.

'''Anna Reinert:''' I'm sure.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' They won't mind.

'''Anna Reinert:''' He'll be missed. He'll be missed.



== Lamy Safari ==


'''Brad Dowdy:''' He's always missed. He's so good. He's such a natural. And for me, even reading the intro, you can tell I'm totally forcing that. That's not my thing. I'm more the rambler and give me a topic and I'll talk about it. Not, okay, here's the fixed part of the show that I need to say. I can't handle that as well.

'''Anna Reinert:''' He's had a lot of practice, though. He's done it for a hundred and how many episodes and you've only done a couple intros? Yeah.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' So this is...

'''Anna Reinert:''' Cut yourself some slack.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' This is 109 and I think this is the third show I've done without him. I think that sounds right.

'''Anna Reinert:''' Weird.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah, weird.

'''Anna Reinert:''' Okay, that's pretty amazing.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yep. Very, very weird. So, okay, let's get into it. We got some... We had an interesting show last week. Not to put you on the spot, but did you listen to last week's show? I'm not sure.

'''Anna Reinert:''' Yes, of course I did.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Okay, well, I'm never sure.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' So we had Tim from Funkmon on Pins and he was a good guest. We got a lot of feedback on that. But I don't know that I've ever gotten more feedback about a particular topic than us talking about cross pins and how bad of a time Tim was having with cross pins. And then I sent kind of a call out to say, hey, if you have experience with any cross pins, tell me what the good ones are. Or tell me your good stories because I'm just hearing Tim's side and I've never used anything. I've definitely never used a cross fountain pen. I'm sure I've used an old cross ballpoint, probably like everyone has at some time in their life. But I got these very strongly worded, if you will, tweets and emails.

'''Anna Reinert:''' Well, Tim's opinions were pretty strong as well last week.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Well, yeah, and I can appreciate that. Absolutely. Like someone said, I forget who it was, someone said that he wasn't being fair. And I actually, I mean, I disagree with that completely. He's being completely fair because that's his opinion. And we may disagree 100% and have the exact opposite experience, but he's certainly being fair because that's what his opinion is.

'''Anna Reinert:''' Right. And he keeps, he keeps buying them. So obviously he's hoping that at some point he'll get one he likes.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' That's right. Do you have any cross pin experience? I want to read a couple of these emails that some of us, some people send. How about you?

'''Anna Reinert:''' I have never, unless someone's handed me like their pen to sign something or whatever, I have never used one. Yeah. Yeah. So now I feel obligated to like, at least go out and give one a try.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' I know. Right. If nothing else, it means I'm going to have to go buy a cross pin now and just to see for myself. But I, the volume of emails I got, they're still coming in. I got one like five minutes before we started talking. I didn't even have time to put it in the show notes and they're not like two sentence emails. These are like five and six paragraph emails. Let me read it. I got two that I saved off. Let me read just kind of the, the bullet points. And I think this was the general consensus of the emails that I got about cross. Um, a lot of them were saying the same types of things. So I just, I pulled out a couple and, uh, let me, let me go over them real quick. One of them was from, from Lois. She says, my first suggestion is the cross ATX, a beautiful, well-made pen to my eye. Um, it's just mine is a shade of blue that I believe is no longer made. It has a very firm nib, which I like. A nice weight and a pleasant size and posted length in my hand. My only complaint is that the section is slick chrome. This makes it uncomfortable to use for any length of time. For this reason, I don't ink it up very often. I bought it about 10 years ago in a brick and mortar stationery store. I think I paid about $60 for it. So that's one thing I've seen in a common thread is people are buying cross pins in person. Um, they're able to find just like cross and Parker in more places than you're able to find necessarily like pilots and pelicans and things like that. They just seem to be at that price point where you're going to get them in that retail environment that you might just stumble on.

'''Anna Reinert:''' Yeah. I've seen them in places like office depot, office max and staples.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yep. Yep. For sure. And she continues on. She says the cross solo is the second pin. I don't think they make it anymore. Mine is black plastic with a gold plated trim. It will never win any beauty contests. And it's very order looking, ordinary looking. Um, and she says it was about $10 and bought it about 10 years ago. And she said it was, she found a recommendation online that it was good, inexpensive starter pin. And, uh, she says every single time I put this nib to paper, I'm pleased with it. I love this pin. Despite the cheesy black plastic and gold plating, I always have this pin inked up and would be very sorry if I lost it. So people are, people love their cross pins. They have a, uh, an attachment and, you know, I think that's that older school marketing link. You know, we just have that, that positive feeling about these things we grew up with. Right. You know, if we are familiar with cross for the past 20 or 30 years, we're going to, you know, kind of give it that, I don't want to say give it the benefit of doubt. It's, I'm sure it's perfectly good pin, but you have that fonder, more positive experience with it, um, that you can bring back. You notice like both of her pins she bought over 10 years ago and she still uses them and still likes them. So.

'''Anna Reinert:''' Well, and it also sounds like at, I mean, any fountain pen that you purchase at a $10 ish, $20 ish price range, um, I, you know, that's when the quality control tends to be a little less consistent. So it's that, you know, luck of the draw. She must've gotten one that was really good and maybe, um, you know, other people pick one up and they get one that isn't as, um, you know, wasn't quality checked as well and have problems with it. But, but I mean, I, my expectation at a $10 price point is hit or miss, you know, sometimes you get them and they work great, you know, maybe three out of five times or something. And then other times they're, the quality's just not there. You know, they just, at that price point, why would they bother to, you know, quality check them the way they would a pen that's over a hundred dollars?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yep. Yep. And we certainly still have quality issues with pins that are at a, at a higher price range.

'''Anna Reinert:''' True. Exactly.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' And, um, yeah, so what, one more quick one from Matt, um, he says, I was listening to the podcast number 108. My ears perked up on your cross fountain pen comments. My first and for the longest time only fountain pen was the cross century to my pen as a fine nib. This pen is a daily use pen for me. I have a Kaveco sport and a Twisby diamond mini classic. I just received my dad's Parker 61 capillary fill. So I'm rather new to the fountain pen addiction. I really liked my century to, I stopped using the ink cartridges and now use the converter since discovering your blog and podcast. Awesome, Matt. This pen writes smoothly, but did notice some flow differences between inks. I mostly use it with Waterman absolute Brown. That ink writes very nicely. And I love the color new lures, ink 54th mass sometimes does not flow well. And if I refill the converter, it flows well again. So that's another, um, the cross century. I've actually heard of that, heard of that pen, um, more frequently than the, uh, the ATX and solo, like Lois was mentioned, but I got, you wouldn't believe the amount of emails I got on this. It was awesome. I love the feedback and, uh, everyone, uh, I'd say it was, you know, pretty much all positive cross. Um, no one said, Oh, you know, every cross pen I have is complete junk. It was, uh, definitely the cross supporters were, were out in force and I appreciate everyone reaching out. So that, that was cool.

'''Anna Reinert:''' That's awesome. It definitely gives us hope that, you know, for somebody who's wanting to try a fountain pen for the first time going into a place that carries them and being able to pick out a cross pen might be a good way to get an introduction into pens. So I guess we, we both need to pony up, try one out.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' That's what I was going to say. I think this is, you know, convinced me that at least, at least need to give it a shot and, uh, you know, no harm in trying. And, uh, certainly I can, uh, make my own opinions from there. So that will be cool. I will, I cross pens are now on the radar folks. So I pre I appreciate all the comments, um, about that. Now this, this next little bit of followup that I wanted to mention is totally random and just slots in with nothing, but I thought it was the coolest thing. Um, I got an email right after last week's plot podcast, just, uh, from a guy named Claudius in Germany. He says just a quick photo from the European parliament elections last week. He says, this is what we vote with in Germany, or at least in Munich. It's a big fat, in this case, purple Statler crayon.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' There may be other colors, but I can't say for sure because I always end up in the booth with the purple ones. Nevertheless, as it would be expected from a pen addict, always bring my own pen. This time it was the Lamy AL star with a Schmidt P8126 refill. So if you click that link, if you click that link in the, uh, the show notes, I did, I did. We're going to have, we'll have this in the show notes, um, which everyone can get it, uh, five by five dot TV slash pen addict slash one Oh nine. This is amazing.

'''Anna Reinert:''' My question is, is it actually legal to take pictures in a voting booth?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Well, in the U S considering, you know, that I've been voting for well over 20 years, I've never even used a pen or a pencil in a voting booth before.

'''Anna Reinert:''' I mean, just a little pokey stick.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. The punch cards and you know, the, the hanging chads, uh, time and all that stuff. I mean, from the first time I ever voted, you know, long, long time ago, I never recall any writing instrument ever being in a voting booth, which that's what threw me off at first. The number two, there was actually a purple crayon in the writing booth.

'''Anna Reinert:''' That's pretty amazing. I think the last time I voted, we got paper ballots and we were given, um, the little golf sized pencils to fill them out. Yeah.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' So, yeah, I guess I've just been in like bigger districts or so. So, which I guess I've never thought about it before, but well, we seem like I've been in smaller districts, but that's, I don't just recall doing that, but I thought this was so neat. And especially there's a lot of voting going on in the U S right now. So I just wanted to bring that up and throw that out there. I'm, I'm curious if anyone else has used any other interesting writing instruments to vote with it. Cause this one, uh, kind of boggled my mind. So it's not only that it's also corporate branded, if you will, right? Like Statler in the voting booth is kind of a statement if that some people might take, I don't know. That's just me being weird, but I just found everything about that picture. Interesting.



== Fountain Pens ==


'''Anna Reinert:''' Well, it's, it is, it wasn't Germany and Statler is a German brand. So if, if that happens in the United States, let's hope everybody has to use crayon, a Crayola brand.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' That's right.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' We haven't, Myke and I haven't been, uh, keeping up as well with our Kickstarter activities like we normally do. You know, what's been, uh, the popular, popular projects, popular campaigns that have gone on, ones that have gone on to been successful. And I think we've missed these last two or three that, um, you put in these notes. And the first one that I found really interesting, but I couldn't find a use case for myself personally and did not back. It was the HMM rule one ruler. So now did you back the, did you back this one?

'''Anna Reinert:''' Would I, I've heard about it and there was only a few days left in the campaign. And, um, so I, I went ahead and posted, um, a little, Hey, check this out. It looks really cool. And then I went back to actually back it and had missed the deadline.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Oh no.

'''Anna Reinert:''' So I did not back it, but it had been really close to being funded. And so that's why I wanted to go ahead and get a post up while I had the chance. And then I was going to wait until payday.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah, exactly.

'''Anna Reinert:''' To back it. And then I, I completely missed it. So, but it was, it was fully funded. And, um, I actually got a thank you note from, uh, the creator who said, thanks so much for posting about it. And we did get funding. Yeah.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Cause they, they, uh, they had a goal of 20,000 and they just clipped it at 23,748. And it, it looks extremely well done. And I'm anxious for people to get these in hands and maybe we'll get someone who I'm sure we'll see some reviews about them and we'll be able to link to them. Um, my not co partner, Jeff actually showed this to me first before I even saw it. He's like, Oh man, this is cool. And I don't know if he ever went around and backed it either or not. Um, but it, the way it integrates the pin into the ruler, um, looks great. And just the design of, I like ruler design for some reason. I like those nice clean lines of rulers. Um, for some reason for like on, uh, on my desk or whatever, even though I don't use them all the time. Like I have that, I have that nice heavy steel exacto ruler that probably a lot of people have, you know, it's like a 12 or 14 inch steel ruler. And I mean, I could, you know, I could take out a robber with that, you know, if he was coming into the house, it's like a serious business ruler, but this looks great.

'''Anna Reinert:''' And, um, it's, it's nice. And I like the, the sort of teardrop shape when you look at it from, uh, from one end. So they were showing it that you could sort of stick it in your book as sort of a bookmark as well, which I thought was kind of cool.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah, that's perfect. So we'll keep our eyes out for when these start getting into people's hands. I want to see some in action. I may just have to back this after the fact, cause it looks pretty sweet.

'''Anna Reinert:''' Yep.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' And one other ruler, um, was that this one, I can't believe I didn't back. It was the cut once air air loom ruler. Yeah. How about that? Did you back that one?

'''Anna Reinert:''' I didn't, but I, from what I understand now, it has, they have done all of their Kickstarter, um, uh, rulers and they're actually, they've actually started a shop. So I think you can actually order it now on a individual basis.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. So we'll put that link in the show notes, but I saw this one when it came out and that's, I'm, I was like you on that one. It's like, I'm going to come back. And, you know, at first I was like, maybe, maybe not. And then the more I looked at it, the more I thought that was just a really cool project. And the way they did it was really nice. And then it ended and I haven't backed it.

'''Anna Reinert:''' So, well, and I didn't actually hear about it until this week. Um, uh, the blogger, my supply room actually posted, um, that they had received theirs and they were talking about how much they liked it and how, how, um, really nice quality it was. And, um, so I'll make sure to get that in the notes.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Now this, this last one, I think you were all over this last one, right?

'''Anna Reinert:''' Oh, the click tape.



== Click Tape Dispenser ==


'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. The click tape dispenser. This, this has Anna Reiner all over it.

'''Anna Reinert:''' You know, I think the, uh, the creator actually sent me a, um, a notice in, in Twitter, like, Hey, look over here.

'''Anna Reinert:''' And I was like, okay. And I looked at it and I'm like, Oh, I got to buy four of them to get the green one. I backed it. I bought four of them. So, and, uh, my husband saw it and he goes, those are really cool. And I'm like, I'm glad you like one. Cause you're getting one.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' And so are a couple other people this Christmas.

'''Anna Reinert:''' Yeah.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' So tell me, tell me if you, can you actually explain this, um, without someone who hasn't seen this yet? Can you explain what's going on here?

'''Anna Reinert:''' Um, what they did was, um, basically your standard roll of scotch tape is normally sits on, um, like a spindle inside of a regular tape dispenser. And then there's a cutting device. What they did, uh, what the creators of the click tape did was that basically it's held onto, um, a ring. And so where you, um, instead of a spindle, it sort of clicks into the ring and on the far end of the ring are the, um, the cutting teeth. So it's just a very, it's a very simple, it's very, like, it's one of those pieces that I looked at and I thought this is going to be considered a very classic design one day. Um, people are going to look at it and be like, why did it take people so long to figure that out? How like aesthetically appealing it looks to have this, it basically ends up looking like two interlocking rings. Right. When it sits on your desk and, um, it doesn't take up a ton of space. So I think it would be, um, fairly portable where the teeth sit, wouldn't necessarily like cut into your backpack or anything like that. And the rolls of scotch tape just pop in and out of the, the ring. So.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. So I thought two things when I saw this, um, one, why didn't someone think of this before? Cause it is such a simple, cool design. And then two, this guy has been working on this for a long time. I mean, just reading through his Kickstarter page, he has put in the time, like perfecting the design of this. I mean, it looks like he started all the way back in 2006 coming up with prototypes of this and, um, he's finally got it out here. And, um, that project was funded successfully just a few days ago, I think three days ago. Um, so that's very cool. So, um, we'll have the link in the show notes. Um, it's, it's all closed up now, but I bet you, you will be seeing more of this, uh, of the click tape. Cause that's, it's really cool.

'''Anna Reinert:''' Yeah. I'm hoping that, um, some of the, um, office supply online sites will say, Hey, we'd like to buy these in bulk from you. So that he'll get some wholesale orders or something.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. I don't see why not. I mean, it looks like it's probably at, at the right price point. It can probably be mass produced pretty readily. And, um, it's just, it's just flat out cool.

'''Anna Reinert:''' Yeah. I'm hoping that it will hold, um, some of the washi tapes, but I'm not sure if it'll fit on the spindles. So that's my big experiment is because I have a drawer full of the washi tapes and I'm like, if that works, that's going to be fantastic.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. Cause those don't necessarily use, there's not standard, um, I don't know what the hole in the middle. It's not necessarily standard width or standard diameter.

'''Anna Reinert:''' And some of them are, and some of them aren't. I think a lot of the, uh, the MT tape brand, I think theirs fit on a regular tape dispenser, but it's, I'm just curious because of the click mechanism, how much, you know, sort of wiggle room you have if they don't fit exactly. Cause the one nice thing with like Scotch tape brand ones is the, the actual spindle that they sit on is plastic where things like the MT tapes, those are, um, they're usually a wooden or a paperboard spool.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yep.



== Pen Product ==


'''Brad Dowdy:''' Cool. So anyway, so one other new, another new product in the non Kickstarter category that Myke and I mentioned last week, one of both Myke and I's favorite pens, the TWSBI 540 rock got a redesign into the TWSBI 580 RB. Um, it's basically the same looking pin, um, just done with the TWSBI 580 hardware, which is better than the 540 build. And as far as build quality goes. So we mentioned them last week and we all know how TWSBI is a little bit funky about actually release dates and releasing products. This one, they didn't play around. They showed it like a week before they put it out for sale. It came out for sale on Monday. Um, and I got tweets saying, Hey, it's out there. So I went and bought, bought mine like immediately.

'''Anna Reinert:''' Yay. It's super cool. If my husband liked fountain pens, it would be perfect for him.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' That would be up his alley.

'''Anna Reinert:''' Yeah.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. I think this is a great looking pen and I'm excited to get it. I don't, I don't know how fast it'll get here maybe by next week, but, um, yeah, I'm cool. And we'll, we'll definitely talk more about this when it comes in, but I just wanted to know, let everyone know who is, is interested in this pen. And it does exist for real on TWSBI site right now. And you can actually purchase it, which I did. Um, I think they're on their regular site and on their Amazon store right now. Then I think by the end of the month, I think people like Goulet pens and others who carry TWSBI products, I think they said they'll be in. And this one we talked about last week, the end cap on the top of the barrel, having, um, the different USA flags. This is just the traditional ROC, uh, sun emblem on there. So I don't know if they're coming out with that USA, uh, flag emblem or not. So, but anyway, I, I did order it. Um, there was 0% chance that I was not going to order that. That was, that was the lock of the year that I was going to order that pen. And, and, um, and I'm, I'm actually scared. I've been scared to use my 540 one because they're so fragile and Myke's broken his. That's the one, the one pen that I love so much that I never use. And I always talk about, you know, buy pens to use them. I've always been scared to use that one because I didn't want to break it because they're just historically fragile. So I'll be using this 580. It'll probably never go uninked.

'''Anna Reinert:''' I used my 540 until I gave it to a friend who lost all of her pens. Oh, that's true. And so far she hasn't said anything about it breaking. So maybe we got a good one.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Good. Good. I like that. I like to hear that. Um, I made a pact with myself at the beginning of the year that I knew I was going to be spending a lot on pens this in 2014. And I made a pact with myself. It's like, okay, I know my budget for pens this year is going to be larger than normal. So I told myself, it's not really a new year's resolution, but it's something I'm going to strive for. And I'm going to stop. One thing I'm going to cut out or try to do better on is buying clothes. So I told myself that I'm not going to buy any new clothes this year unless I absolutely have to have like out of need, right? Just not buy stuff out of want or desire or anything. So I've only bought- How's that working out for you? It's actually working out well, except for four items. I've bought two Pen Addict t-shirts when we launched on Teespring. And now my friend Myke Dudek has launched a t-shirt, the Dudek Modern Goods t-shirt, which I have backed on Teespring. And now our friend Dan Bishop from Karis Customs launched a t-shirt on Teespring. So now I've purchased four t-shirts this year. That's the only amount of- the only clothing I've bought this year have been t-shirts from Teespring.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' You know, I thought the Pen Addict project went really well. And Myke's shirt looks awesome. It's- he has actually two designs. He's got the block design, and then he has the saw blade design. I think the block design's already filled. He's calling it the Simple Gray t-shirt, which is the Dudek Modern Goods with the block. And then he has one with the same design with a saw blade around it. I backed the saw blade one, and that one hasn't fulfilled yet. But I wanted to just mention that out there. You know, they're such good supporters of us, and I'm such big fans of their work that I wanted to put Myke's and Dan's Teesprings in the show notes and mention them. You know, plug them just because they're good guys, and they deserve to have their t-shirts made. Agreed. But Myke's, yeah, I want the saw blade one on Myke, and then the Karis Customs one. They've had the slogan forever, at least as long as I can remember. The slogan is, it's quality, bro. And this big thumbs up logo. And they did that on the back of the t-shirt, and it's just fantastic. So-

'''Anna Reinert:''' Excellent.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' I have not bought any clothes this year except Teespring t-shirts, which is kind of hard to believe. And so I should be good on t-shirts here for a while, I'm guessing.

'''Anna Reinert:''' I'm pretty much in the same boat, although I didn't make a New Year's resolution about it.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah, it wasn't really a resolution. I was just being a dork. I was like, let's see if I can handle this because I'm not a clothes horse or anything. But, you know, like if I see good deals, I'll just buy them knowing that, you know, I'll probably wear them. And then you end up with a stack of clothes that you never wear. So I was like, let's just, you know, don't buy clothes unless you need them. So I've been very good except for Teespring t-shirts from my friends. So I'm happy to support them.

'''Anna Reinert:''' Excellent.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' This next link, I don't think I would have ever caught. But this morning, our favorite pen addict podcast mascot, Kanuni Renneshen, sent me this tweet. She says, look at this link, check out the last item. So she sends me a buzz feed and it's basically a listicle, which is what they're known for. And I'm so anti-listicle, it's not even funny, which is a list article. It feels weird to say. But, you know, it's the 103 reasons, you know, why you should work at a standing desk. You know, those type of articles. All right.

'''Anna Reinert:''' I opened the link.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Have you not seen this yet?

'''Anna Reinert:''' No, I just opened it. All right.



== Stationery Addict ==


'''Brad Dowdy:''' So the link on BuzzFeed, it's in the DIY section. It's 27 telltale signs you're a stationary addict. So I pulled this link up and I just started reading it. And there's a bunch of good stuff. You know, it's stuff all we all know and we can totally relate with. And then you scroll down and scroll down. And tell me when you get to that last item, Anna.

'''Anna Reinert:''' Okay. I'm working on it. I'm just laughing. I'm like, yes, yes, yes.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Check, check, check.

'''Anna Reinert:''' Check, check. Okay. I'm getting down there. Wow. This is a long list.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' It is a long list. So it's 27. Yeah. Like number 25 is you've never left a Japanese stationary store without spending hundreds of hundreds of dollars. I love that one.

'''Anna Reinert:''' True that. Oh, 26 kind of. Oh, no way.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' So 27 is you've actually listened to episodes of the Pen Addict podcast. So I replied back to her. I was like, I did not see that coming at all.

'''Anna Reinert:''' You are famous.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Look at the bottom of that image. Where did they get that image from?

'''Anna Reinert:''' Oh, my gosh.

'''Anna Reinert:''' Okay. That's pretty funny.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' They stole the image from wellappointeddesk.com.

'''Anna Reinert:''' Because apparently they couldn't figure out that penaddict.com was an actual website.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' How funny is that?

'''Anna Reinert:''' That's pretty funny.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' So not only is it contained on this list on BuzzFeed, what I never would have thought in a million years, the image from the Pen Addict podcast shirt is from the wellappointed desk who just happens to be a guest on this show today. So it was fate.

'''Anna Reinert:''' What are the odds? It was fate.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' I thought that was crazy. But that's a pretty cool list. I think everyone would get a kick out of that. And I've actually had some people tweeting to me since seeing that list. I was like, oh.

'''Anna Reinert:''' I want people to tweet their scores.

'''Anna Reinert:''' Out of 27, how many?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' How many check marks you got there?

'''Anna Reinert:''' Yeah.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' I'd have to go back through, but it's probably 100% or at least 95%, I bet.

'''Anna Reinert:''' Yeah, probably.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' All right. Well, we didn't have you on today just to talk about the news. We're going to talk about some stuff that you and I, we've talked about before. Talk about some of the left-handed issues that you deal with, which we've had you on before talking about. We're going to talk about some of our favorites, papers and pens, and how we match them up together. And we're going to talk about some kind of the long forgotten pens. But first, before I get into that, I need to do a couple of business items. And number one is to read our sponsorship from the lovely people at Pen Chalet. So Pen Chalet is for the pen addict in all of us. It's a place to shop online for authentic, amazing roller balls, fountain pens, ballpoints, mechanical pencils, and so much more. They carry all your favorite brands like Monteverde, Pelican, Pilot, Namiki, Sailor, and Caveco. Pen Chalet, of course, is an authorized dealer of all these brands. They run special discounts twice a month, including closeout specials every two weeks. Pen Chalet is always adding new styles of pens every single month, including limited edition pens and all the accessories you ever need, like carrying cases, pen holders, refills, fountain pen converters, and more. Orders over $50 have free shipping in the continental U.S., but they also sell internationally and have very reasonable shipping rates. With fast and reliable customer service, Pen Chalet has low prices on high-quality pens and offers a 100% satisfaction guarantee. So we have something cool today from the Pen Chalet. Pen Chalet. Pen Addict pouch. And so what Pen Addict is doing is they're not only giving you the 10% off that they give you by using the code Pen Addict, they're giving you an additional Pilot Pen Pouch for any orders over $75 in the next three days. I think on Friday at midnight Eastern Time, this code expires. So go to Pen Chalet.com, click on the radio podcast button, type in Pen Addict. As soon as you see it, any orders you place, you're going to get your 10% off, like always. If you spend more than $75, you enter the code ADDICTPOUCH in your cart at the end of your order, and you're going to get a free Pilot Pen Pouch. And this pouch is pretty cool. I've never even seen this, actually. It's a Pilot-branded Pen Pouch. It's like a fold-over sleeve. It's got magnets on the left and right side. It holds two pins in the middle. It's like this velvety cloth, so it's like a soft interior. It's got two pin loops, so it holds two pins right in the center. And then the left side folds over, and the right side folds over. And it's like a magnetic catch on the exterior, so there's no snaps, no Velcro. So it's a real neat little accessory you can have for your pins. So that was really awesome of Pen Chalet to do. So go check it out. Put in code PINADDICT. And once you hit that landing page, you will see the offer for the attic pouch, and you'll see the Pilot Pen Pouch they're offering up there. So if you spend $75 or more by Friday, June the 6th at midnight Eastern, you're going to get the Pilot Pen Pouch for free. So that's very cool. Thank you, Pen Chalet, for doing that.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Now, just to vouch for Pen Chalet, I placed my first order with them about a week or two ago. Let me pull up the name of the pen that I bought, because I've been eyeballing this pen.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' And I bought a Pelican Pura, which I'll put in the show notes. Have you seen this pen, Anna?

'''Anna Reinert:''' I have not.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' So it's a fountain pen ballpoint line that Pelican has come up with, I think only in the past year or two. I've been seeing them around a little bit, and it's very different from their other styles, their traditional styles, like the M205 is a very classic-looking pen. This is still a very classic-looking pen, but it's a metal barrel pen. It reminds me a lot of the Lamy Studio. So I ordered one. I used the code PINADDIC10. I got 10% off. So it was $92, and I got 10% off that. And what I wanted to do is I wanted – there was a twofold reason why I wanted this. Number one, to try out the nib to see how it compares to, like, the M205 nib, which I love. And number two, Pelican came out with the Edelstein ink cartridges. This is a cartridge converter fill, not a piston filler. So they have the Edelstein Topaz in ink cartridges. They come in this little Altoids-looking tin, and they're really neat. I got the Topaz. I ordered the Topaz Edelstein cartridges. So I've got that loaded up in the Pura, and it's working great so far. And I think I ordered it from Pen Chalet. My order showed up in, like, three days. I don't know. It was fast. They're super fast shipping, good packaging, totally good experience. So I'm very happy with what I've got, and I will be reviewing that soon on the blog and maybe on the podcast. So it is a very cool product and something a little bit different from Pelican. So I've actually got a lot to say about this pen because it's different than some of their more classic offerings.

'''Anna Reinert:''' It definitely looks like something that would appeal to someone who likes the look of the Lamy pens but is looking for something a little bit different.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Exactly. Exactly. So it's a pretty cool pen. So you will definitely be hearing more about that. Excellent. Now we've got the pen blog of the week, and I bestow the honor of picking the pen blog of the week to Miss Anna Reiner this week. So why don't you tell us who the pen blog of the week is?

'''Anna Reinert:''' Well, I picked Modern Stationer. Woo-hoo! Woo-hoo! It's a really new blog, but I've really liked the articles that he's posted. There's really probably only about eight posts up so far. But each one is very thoughtful and pretty thorough. For me, I think it's kind of fun to listen to someone else sort of kind of coming into this world. A lot of the blogs that people read on a regular basis are people like you and gourmet pens, people who have been involved in fountain pens and this community for a long time. And so it's kind of fun to hear someone coming in for the first time. And sort of, you know, I love the piece that he wrote about improving his handwriting, which was really cool. Used a book that I think I've written a review about in the past as well. But, you know, and so, you know, there was that story. And he also wrote a story about looking for greeting cards for his wife to give to his wife, which was a really nice story and particularly interesting to me because I work in the business.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Exactly.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' He's done an exceptional job with the site so far. It's beautiful looking. The content is great. I love his writing style, his review style. His name's Doug, I think, right? Doug.

'''Anna Reinert:''' Yeah, Doug Lane.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah, and he's on Twitter. I'll get his Twitter address. I'll put it in the show notes. But it's on his blog. It's modernstationer.com. It's a great name. Beautifully designed blog. Awesome content. And I'm glad Doug is part of the community and we want to show him the link love by making him the pen addict podcast blog of the week. So everyone, be sure to go check that out. Check it out in the show notes. Go to the link. And read up on all his articles. He does an excellent job.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' All right. All the stuff. That's what I call this topic.

'''Anna Reinert:''' We are going to talk about all the things.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' All the things. But first, right when we got on, you're like, oh, I just got back from getting my mail. You wouldn't believe what I got in the mail today. I'm like, okay, stop. Let's just tell me in the show. I don't want to hear about it. You're excited about your mail day. So tell me about your mail day.

'''Anna Reinert:''' Well, I am on a kick right now with nylon tipped pens. So I went absolutely crazy on jet pens and bought six different brands. So they're going to be a big review coming up of different nylon tips. I've been doing a lot of hand lettering and stuff at work. So this has been of particular interest to me. But I picked an assortment of pigment-based and oil-based to just try them out and see. So the oil-based ones are going to be the ones that are more permanent. But they're also going to be the ones that tend to bleed more. And then the pigment-based are sort of more like the Sakura Pigma Micron that you love so much. So I did pick up one of the zigs, the one that you recommended.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah, the comic outliner.

'''Anna Reinert:''' Yes.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yes, yeah.

'''Anna Reinert:''' Got that one.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Mangaka. That's one of those with the really long names.

'''Anna Reinert:''' Yeah, it's still wrapped in the bubble wrap. So I'm having to sort of guess. I probably should have pulled out the – let's see. Here's my invoice. I got the Pilot Drawing Pen.

'''Anna Reinert:''' I got the Stabilo Sensor Fineliner Marker Pen. The D-Liter Neopika. The Kuretaka Zig Cartoonist Mangaka Outline Pen. That's the one. The Uni Pin.

'''Anna Reinert:''' And I think that – oh, and the Pilot Lettering Pen.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Oh, cool.

'''Anna Reinert:''' So I'm going to be busy.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' You are going to be busy. And this – these pens are like right up your alley. I can't wait to see your post on this because I actually bought – I think I've used all those. And I never reviewed the Pilot, the oil-based one because I don't know what to do with that. That's not a writing pen. And I'm a writer. I'm not an artist or a drawer. That's an artist-only pen because as soon as it touched the page, it goes everywhere.

'''Anna Reinert:''' Yeah. Yeah. And so I'll probably end up testing some of these on some different types of paper. I'm still on the hunt for good paper for lettering at work, and I think I found one. I don't know if anybody who reads The Well-Pointed Desk will care, but I will actually mention it at some point. Because I – they discontinued the paper that we use at work, and everybody's been very upset about it. But the other thing that I got in the mail was I love my render case so much from Karis Customs, and I managed to lose mine last week. Oh, no. So I ordered a new one, and the old one turned up.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Get out.



== Fountain Pens ==


'''Anna Reinert:''' But the new one that I ordered, I bought the one that takes the G2 cartridges instead of the Hitec C, hoping that I would find the one that takes the Hitec C cartridges.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Awesome.

'''Anna Reinert:''' So now I have both, and I'm very excited because I also ordered a ton of different types of cartridges. So at some point in time, I'm going to do sort of a big post about everything you can cram into a render K.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' That's great because I get asked that all the time, and I tend to get stuck in my ways. I'm like, well, I've used these two or three. I'm sure there's a lot more, but I haven't figured them out yet. Yeah, I'm totally addicted to the Pilot Juice .38 Blue Black is what I'm using in, like, all the G2 style ones. You know, when I'm not using the Hitec C bodies, the ones that take the G2 bodies, I'm all about the Pilot Juice. I've actually, I have the Retract in my hand right now.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' That's what I'm writing my notes with, and that takes the same Blue Black Juice .38. And I just wrote down Render K with my Retract. So similar brethren in pens. So I think I read your post about losing and finding the Render K. Is it your husband that continually loses these pens, or did you lose them?

'''Anna Reinert:''' No, that was actually me. That was actually me. It got moved from a bag to a pencil case to a, you know, and it just fell to the bottom. And I was like, wait, no, that does not go in there. When I found it, I'm like, no. Back here. That's one of my daily carries. So now it's back.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Awesome.

'''Anna Reinert:''' It's kept safe in its NotCo carrying case.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Exciting stuff.

'''Anna Reinert:''' I know.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' We're so ready to get that store open. I tell you what. I know we got people chomping at the bit. It's coming. It's coming soon.

'''Anna Reinert:''' Yay.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Coming soon. So you did a pretty handy article for our friend Patrick Rohn's new website, The Cramped, called The Fountain Pen Guide for the Left-Handed Writer. So why don't you talk about that real quick? Because we've had you on, like, because both Myke and you are lefties. So I was actually outnumbered in that episode. And it's a great topic. And there's always new questions about this and new listeners that are left-handed that have certain challenges with left-handed pens. And you took this article from the point of a fountain pen user. So why don't you tell me a little bit about that and how that came to be and a little bit about the article and what you found out.

'''Anna Reinert:''' Sure. Can I squee a little bit? Because nobody else got excited that I was like, Patrick Rohn emailed me and he wanted an article.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Isn't he great? I love Patrick. And I try to talk to him as frequently as I can. And I always come away smarter for it.

'''Anna Reinert:''' So he's pretty amazing.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Thank you for being a good friend, Patrick. And yeah, when he told me he was launching this site, I was like, this is going to be good. So I'm glad he's reached out to you to write something for it.

'''Anna Reinert:''' Yeah, it was. Well, because I've done this enough times, I've talked about being left-handed and what issues arise. I was able to sort of, this was really, this is the compendium volume. So if anybody is looking through my site for information, just go to this article, read this article. I think I feel, I feel like I've condensed it into sort of everything you need to know is a quick overview.

'''Anna Reinert:''' But, you know, I mean, the biggest issues that people who are left-handed have are whether or not they put their hand in the ink when they're writing is the big deal. And so sometimes it's a question of quick drawing ink. Sometimes it's a question of the angle of the pen and their sort of pen preference. But yeah, for the most part, I'm one of those left-handers that are the most disabled, which is that I learn how to write by kind of hooking my hand over my paper to try to keep it out of what I'm writing. And so that tends, that creates probably the most concern for people when they say, I'm left-handed, but I really want a fountain pen. And, well, I write upside down and crooked and wonky and I can use fountain pens. So I kind of started the whole article by saying, if you're left-handed, you can use a fountain pen. Here's a few things that you need to know, you know, and the first one is quick drawing inks help. If you want a nice, thick, wide line, probably the first concern is I'm going to run my arm right through this and it's going to be all over my shirt and that kind of thing. So the first thing you want is quick drawing ink and also what kind of paper you're using, which is the same issue I even think right-handed writers face is that there's some paper ink combinations that are more likely to bleed on the paper, stand up on the paper forever and take 20 minutes to dry. I mean, you just kind of have to find the right combination.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yep. That's definitely a challenge for everybody.

'''Anna Reinert:''' And so it's, you know, as much as lefties tend to have more concern with it because they immediately put their arm in it. And I, the other day, what was I doing? Oh, when I put up the post about, um, uh, the paper guides, it's, it, you know, it is now officially hot and humid here. So pretty much every ink I use is a slow drying. And I almost had to write that three or four times cause I just kept running my hand through it and it would just went everywhere. And I was like, so it's not you. It's just the joys of being left-handed. Um, but of course I was not using like anything like Bernanke blue or anything, which is really designed to be a little bit quicker drawing. And I was using rhodia paper, which tends to keep the ink up on the paper and stuff. So anyway, um, I lost my train of thought.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Well, I'll, I'll help you. I'll help you with that. When you're, when you're taking fountain pens to write with, say just in whatever you're carrying that day to write with. And actually we're going to probably talk about a little bit about what we're going to talk about in a minute. Do you, are you concerned a lot with the paper you write on or do you deal with the properties of the paper because you enjoy writing on the paper?

'''Anna Reinert:''' Um, most of the time I sort of downgraded my daily paper selection to something that's above a moleskine, but below rhodia.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Okay. Yeah. That's kind of what I was alluding to.

'''Anna Reinert:''' Like, so I kind of, um, like term 1917 is a good sort of middle ground for me. Um, and I tend not to have a lot of issues with, um, ink dry time, but I also like finer nibbed pens, which helps the wider the nib, the longer, the more ink you're putting down on the paper, the longer it takes to dry. Um, which, you know, for better or worse. Yeah. But, um, a lot of times, I mean, I can use like a 1.1 millimeter stub on sort of that middle ground paper and I'm okay. Okay. Sometimes it bleeds. Yeah.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' I thought your, your point about in the article about using like a calligraphy nib, that's just a hard block style nib. That's going to be really tough. I never thought about that, um, for, for left-handers. You, that's more of a challenge than, than even like the stub nibs and things like that, just because it's such a stiff, firm, squared off type of nib. Right. Right.

'''Anna Reinert:''' Right. And the, and that's the only time that when I really say to left, left-handed writers, that's where you have to start talking about, um, us, you know, I mean, if you really want to use something like a 1.5 or a two millimeter wide, like calligraphy nib, that's when you need to start. And some people don't have any problem. They have a, just, they just happen to hit the sweet spot in the way that they write and the angle that they write at. It's not a big deal. But for other people, you will need to have, um, a left-handed grind on the nib, which angles it down, um, to the left instead of it being flat across the top, which is how a right-handed calligraphy nib is treated.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Right. Right.

'''Anna Reinert:''' So, and, and, and that's one of those things where that's like, basically my recommendation is if it's your first fountain pen, don't go over there. Yeah. Aim for a medium or a fine kind of in that area and at least learn, you know, work with it. One of the other things that I mentioned is, um, a problem that a lot of right-handed people have as well, which is how hard you press down on the paper. If you're really heavy handed, um, left, lefties are going to have more trouble, um, because we are pushing the pen instead of pulling it in most cases. Um, so you can kind of, you know, with an extra fine, like a pilot extra fine, you know, prayer, you're just going to bend those tines. It's not going to be pretty. So, I mean, the first thing is like, you know, try it with a ballpoint or a roller ball right on a piece of paper and lift it up and see if the sheet underneath it has a huge indent. If so, you're heavy handed and you're going to have to learn to lift up and use a lighter hand when you're writing. Don't push so hard.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' I've always been heavy handed and, uh, I try to work on that with fountain pens. I find myself getting better, but I still have to remind myself sometimes like, take it easy. You don't need to, to be that, uh, forceful when writing, especially with a fountain pen. So.

'''Anna Reinert:''' Well, and fountain pens, because the ink usually comes out so easily, you really don't have to be hard, um, and heavy handed with it and push really hard. Um, and I think a lot of left, left handed people push really hard because we are pushing and not pulling the pen that, you know, I mean, I have an endless amounts of trouble with roller ball and ballpoint pens because of the angle that I write and everything. Basically the ink just never comes out. Right. It doesn't matter how hard I push, but it has a tendency. Like when someone can't hear you, you speak louder. If a pen doesn't write, you push harder. And you know, with fountain pens, that isn't, that doesn't tend to be the issue as much.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yep. Yep.

'''Anna Reinert:''' So lick it, spit on it. Yep. Get the ink flowing.

'''Anna Reinert:''' Then see if you have a problem.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yes, for sure. For sure.

'''Anna Reinert:''' So anyway, so that's kind of the, the most of the article. Yeah. It was a good article. Sorry if I repeated myself.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' No. And it's, that's something that, you know, I'll point people to all the time because they're always looking for a good resource. You know, um, I get those emails pretty frequently. Hey, I'm a lefty and I want to do this. What pen should I use? So, you know, there's some, you know, there's no hard, fast answers, but there's some general guidelines that, you know, articles like this can totally help out with and, um, get you started down the right path. So that's perfect. So we kind of alluded to it in there with your, with the book term paper we wanted to talk about. I've gotten a few emails and I think you've got some conversation around this on a to matching a specific pen to a specific paper. And people were wanting to know, okay, well, if I'm using a moleskin, what type of pen works well, if I'm using, you know, Rodea, what type of pen works well, or if I have some just kind of, you know, crazy paper that I want to use, you know, like the X field notes, expedition fans, what type of pen should I use? So we've had a bunch of questions about this. So we wanted to address this real quick and talking about just like the everyday paper, like the moleskin. When I started my blog, that's what I used. I use the reporter style to do my reviews in and not knowing at the time much about the paper quality and how the type of pen and the paper are going to work together. Like these things have to work together, right? You, you might hate a pen because it's bleeding when you write, but it may not be the pen's fault, right? It's very likely the paper is as equal to blame as your pen. And it took me a while to discover that, um, on my own saying, Hey, the paper actually matters when you're writing and you have to be considerate of that. So like in a moleskin, I ended up figuring out that the liquid ink pens actually worked the best for me in a moleskin, like, um, like a pilot V5 pilot, precise, um, those type of pens. Whereas the gel pens were a little bit tougher. And then anything with more ink, like a fountain pen was just almost a non-starter. It bled so much. So what do you, what do you find just from, you know, the more popular basic everyday type of papers, what type of issues and what type of pens do you use?

'''Anna Reinert:''' Um, I really like the, the Loic term 1917 that tends to be my go-to for just an everyday notebook, um, at work, something that I'm not, you know, it's not the precious, this is for my, you know, travels to Europe kind of thing. It's just like, I'm writing down, you know, the stuff I have to do today and, you know, um, but that, um, I'm trying to think if there's, I mean, those are, you know, it's like those, those sort of mid range, um, and even like even a moleskin, I mean, people love them because it's, they're easy to access. They're sort of gateway notebooks.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' For sure.

'''Anna Reinert:''' Um, that's something besides a, you know, uh, spiral bound, you know, mead paper notebook, you know, I mean, it is a step up from that. So, um, but for those, um, I, I haven't had too much trouble with like a gel ink pen, um, in those, but I use a lot of like 0.25, 0.38, like the real fine line. And those are fine. I mean, if you're taking notes in a meeting or class notes or something like that in any of those sort of under, you know, right around $20 or below notebooks, I think that, you know, those are, are fine. It's, you know, I mean, people want to marry a, a moleskin up with their, um, you know, fountain pen. And that's where you, it's like, if you really want the moleskin, find a nice, you know, find a nice render K.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Right. Exactly.

'''Anna Reinert:''' You know, it's, you know, a nice looking pen that you can put a, you know, a, um, ballpoint or a roller ball into and use it with that notebook. Yep. And then, then you have that sort of that pairing. Um, but yeah, so that's sort of my go-to combination at work. Cause it's, you know, I don't care if I lose a uni, uni ball style fit pen at work or, uh, um, you know, just sort of a standard black covered notebook.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Right. And I, I find the same with, with field notes and other memo style books. Um, you know, like, uh, don't paper because those, those books are going to use really, they're going to use the most standard type of papers because they can't really get into specialty paper because that affects the style and feel of their notebooks. So with like field notes, I pretty much only use gel ink pens in there every now and then I'll just, I'm using fountain pens and I'll use something with a real fine nib. And a lot of people just only use fountain pens in their field notes, but I can't do it. I I'm strictly gel only in the field notes just cause the paper is so thin and it really works the best for me.

'''Anna Reinert:''' And I, and I think those are, it's a good pairing. And I think there's an, there's a lot of options for pens that take a roll, like a roller ball. Like, you know, if you're looking for a pocket pen, that's a roller ball or a ballpoint to use with your, um, field notes, there's lots of combinations.



== Fountain Pen Paper ==


'''Brad Dowdy:''' Now for fountain pen friendly paper, like when I say that, and you know, people talk about fountain pen friendly paper, they're normally talking about a smoother, smoother paper, sometimes a little bit more dense paper, a little bit thicker page. You know, we're talking about something like Rhodia, Claire Fontaine, or even like a super specialty paper, like a Tomo river paper. And these are the papers I use for everything. So I call them fountain pen, fountain pen friendly paper. And you know, you call them that, but I use all my pens on this paper because it's generally the smoothest, nicest experience for a pen. Um, yes, fountain pens are the majority of what I use them for, but all of your pens are generally going to work well on these papers, but you just got to be aware of things like dry time and things like that. So what do you, what do you find yourself using on some of the, the more fountain pen pen, fountain pen friendly specifics? Do you have any like favorites, like as far as super fine nibs or stuff?

'''Anna Reinert:''' Well, and I mean the nice, the nice thing with the fountain pen friendly paper is because there's a little bit of sizing in the paper that helps to keep the ink above the paper and it doesn't absorb in and bleed and feather and do those things. You can use those wider nibs. So that's when you can get out your, you know, 1.1 or in my case, I have a 0.6 ish size. That's my favorite. Like my, my vintage, um, uh, Esther Brooks, um, on that found pen friendly paper, which is, you know, the particularly like the Rodia. I started doing, um, actually all my pen and ink reviews on a Rodia pad. I just fell in line with you and Ed. I'm just doing it. Well, it was works better. It's looks better. They, you know, I never have the bleeding problem that I was having with some of the other papers I had used in the past.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. And they photograph well, which is a consideration.

'''Anna Reinert:''' Absolutely.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. I mean, it was no coincidence that I ended up falling into that. It's because it works better. I mean, it's not a, you know, it's not trying to make a point. It's okay. I've used all these things now. What's working the best for what I need. And it ends up being something like Rodia. Yeah.

'''Anna Reinert:''' And for things like, I mean, if you like to play with lots, with fountain pens and lots of different ink colors, those Rodia pads come in a bright white, which means you're not losing any of the vibrancy of your ink colors, which is a huge thing. You know, I mean, like Moleskines are, you know, kind of, but they have that ivory gray, you know, ivory colored paper, which is going to dull your ink colors, which is fine. I mean.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. It's great for writing.

'''Anna Reinert:''' For writing, if that's what you want to do. But, you know, when I'm writing a review and saying, oh, this turquoise color is so vivid. And then I put it on cream paper. Everybody's like, really?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. It doesn't really work that way. Yep.

'''Anna Reinert:''' Yeah.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yep. It took a little bit to figure that out. So now the last, the last little bit here is the specialty paper, which is, it's kind of the hardest for me. Just it's a frustration point for me because I'm, I don't get to be as free, but that's kind of the point. So it's kind of unfair to, to knock these papers just because of their special qualities. But, you know, something like, um, we talk about the Field Notes Expedition Edition, which has the, the Yupo plastic paper or the Write in the Rain, which is the waterproof paper. Um, so tell me, tell me about what you use for those.

'''Anna Reinert:''' Well, I just recently got to do a review of Write in the Rain and it's one of those things where it's like, you know, I knew going into it, there's only certain kinds of, you know, tools that you can use on this paper because of the way that it's created. But if what you really need is something that's going to withstand the elements, then I think that's a concession that you're willing to make. For sure. Like if what you really want is to use beautiful fountain pens with beautiful colored inks, then your priority isn't necessarily that you're, what you're working on be waterproof. So with Write in the Rain, but the, the flip side is Write in the Rain, you can write on it with a Sharpie marker and that it stays put, it doesn't bleed, it doesn't do anything. If you love Sharpies and you use them all the time, it doesn't bleed through the back of the page or anything. I was like, I love my Sharpie again.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' That's crazy. I did not realize that at all.

'''Anna Reinert:''' And like all of those, the oil-based pens that you said you hadn't quite figured out what you could use them on, try them in your Expedition Edition or in the Write in the Rain and see what kind of results you get. Because I think that's where you find those combinations where it's like, I have this pen, it's interesting, I like it, what can I, you know, what kind of paper can I pair it with? Most of us have enough different kinds of paper now that you can be like, these pens go with this paper, let's go with this paper. Right. And, you know, I mean, if you want to have a pen and, you know, a notebook in your car or something for emergencies or, you know, when you've got a quick write something down because it's in your head, that might be a good pairing to put an Expedition Edition and an oil-based marker pen in your car.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Or, you know, dare I say it, pencils. Yeah, no, I'm on the pencil train and that has left the station. So, yeah, I am finding a love for pencils here recently. Even though I haven't been, you know, reviewing many on the blog yet, I find myself just in my personal writing and use, reaching for woodcase pencils more, which is just, I guess it's back when I used to never use fountain pens and never understood fountain pens, and now I'm like a full-bore fountain pen addict. I'm on that pencil bandwagon for sure.

'''Anna Reinert:''' Yay! So, yeah, so, I mean, those water-resistant papers, I think you just have to look for a different combination. If what you really want to do is use a paper that you know is going to withstand some serious abuse, you're going to have to also find a writing tool that is also sort of abuse-averse. It won't, you know, it'll stand up to the abuse.



== Stone Paper ==


'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. So, what about stone paper? I want to ask you about that specifically because I had an experience with stone paper that was less than positive.

'''Anna Reinert:''' Did you use the Ogami?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' I did.

'''Anna Reinert:''' Okay, because I haven't tried that yet, but somebody sent me a sample of some stone paper that they found at their local drugstore that I want to say was maybe Mead or something very...

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Oxford makes them.

'''Anna Reinert:''' The Oxford.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yep.

'''Anna Reinert:''' And I tested that a little bit, but I didn't feel like I had enough to actually write a review. Okay. But I didn't have any issues with that. I mean, it was one of those things where it was like, I'm not crazy mad in love with it, but I didn't really have any problems. And I put gel and gel pens, some rollerball and some fountain pens, but again, like a fine nib, sort of my everyday pen and everything seemed to write okay. So, maybe the Oxford uses a slightly different formula than the Ogami, but yeah, I read your review and I'm like, I'm not touching that.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Maybe you should. I want to get, I want to see if I'm insane or what, but I don't know. I was, I've gotten to the point where I know what I like and I'm very particular. So, sometimes that I'm not as open in my reviews and I have to tell myself to, you know, look at this, not from my perspective, but from the reader's perspective and what their use cases are. So, you know, I want to try to give everything a fair shake, but you know, I still call a spade a spade, you know, from my personal use cases.

'''Anna Reinert:''' Absolutely. And you know, I did the same thing when I reviewed the Expedition Edition. I was like, it's so pretty. And, but, you know, and then I did the review of Right in the Rain and I went into Right in the Rain thinking, okay, this is going to be different. I'm going to have to think about this differently. And I came back going, okay, I'm going to need to go back and look at the Expedition Edition again. Exactly. Because I'm seeing the benefits of using something like this. Now, obviously that Field Notes Expedition Edition was a limited edition and it's not as if, you know, they're going to keep stocking this. And so, this is something that people are going to be able to get. So, it seems a little unfair to go back and review it.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Well, no, they turned that into a stock edition.

'''Anna Reinert:''' Okay. Well, then it is worth going back and taking another look at it.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yep. They decided afterwards that they wanted to keep a stock edition of that one. So, yeah, it became a permanent fixture. Okay. But your point is valid because I changed my opinion on things over time too. You learn, it's a learning process, right? You know, what we thought at the time and, you know, taking the, you know, whatever tools we're using at the time and applying that to, you know, a product or review or something like that, you know, that's, you know, that particular use case. Well, then you find another use case. Like, you know, you just mentioned, maybe I should try my oil-based pen that I don't know what to use it on, on something like Expedition Edition. So, yeah, it's a learning process and things change, opinions change, and it's all part of the process. So, that's good stuff. All right. So, when we talked about you coming on the show, you had a really good idea that I wanted to talk about. And it was revisiting some of our old favorite pens. Like, I find myself getting lost and, you know, I definitely skewed more fountain pen heavy here recently on my blog. And, you know, sometimes you forget, you know, some of the old favorite pens that are still around. And we don't talk about them as much because they haven't changed for five or more years. But they're still awesome pens that people should check out. And people who are new to our blogs and things like that, they don't get the benefit of coming along for the ride, if you will, as we're going through these things. You know, they'd have to dig back and look for something specific. So, we wanted to highlight a few pens that, or pencils or whatever we have on our list to kind of rekindle some of these old flames, if you will. Some pens that we really, really loved that have kind of just kind of fallen, you know, to the back of the desk drawer, if you will. And I'll go first. I'll read a few of mine real quick. And it's made me go and grab these pens out and start carrying them more is what happened here. But one pen that I love and I haven't used for a year or two is the Kuretaki Fudeigo Kochi Brush Pen. Super fine. So, when you think of a brush pen, you think of a very, almost like a paintbrush style tip. And with this pen, it's very, very firm with only a slight bit of, for the lack of a better term, flex in the brush. I love how this pen writes. I love the design of the pen. It's a very basic, classic design, plastic barrel pen. It's a super good writing pen. And that's what I do the most. And it writes on several different papers very well. You know, and I'll have all these links in the show notes so people can go check out our reviews on these pens. But when did I review this pen? It was in 2011. 2011. August 8th, 2011. And I used that pen. I used the heck out of that pen for, I don't know, probably six months. And then it just vanished. You know, something new and pretty came along and I ignored it. And it's time to break that pen back out because it's awesome. It's a really good pen.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' The second one I put on my list is really unfair. But I use this pen and I love this pen. And I'm going to have to open up a change.org petition for Pilot to bring back this pen. But it's the Pilot Explorer. The Extra Fine. It's such a great pen. And I know not everyone can find them. They don't make them anymore. And if you're lucky enough to come across one, you'll see why it's such a cool pen. But I still use this pen pretty frequently. And like I said, it's kind of not fair that I put it in here because it's not easily attainable. But yeah, I got to work on this petition for Pilot to bring this pen back.

'''Anna Reinert:''' So what makes you love it so much?



== Pilot Pens ==


'''Brad Dowdy:''' I think it's the barrel. Because it's just, Pilot makes, I think Pilot makes the best liquid ink pens. Like the Precise Line and the V-Ball and all those retractable, you know, RT, whatever their crazy naming conventions are. But they're essentially all the same liquid ink and just different pens. And that's what this pen is. But it's like a proprietary size refill. There's no other refill like this. It's just got a really cool, ergonomic, futuristic-looking barrel. And it's got a clip.

'''Anna Reinert:''' One of those spring-loaded.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah, it's like a knock. The knock is tied into the clip. So yeah, it's spring-loaded. You flip the clip and it, you know, retracts the pen and things like that. I don't know. That's very cool. It's one of those pens that I used in school when I was younger. So you have this nostalgic part about it. And then it went away. And it's gone. But I've just always had nothing but good experiences with that pen. So maybe I put it in here at least to remind myself to go bang on Pilot some more. Because I'll tweet them every now and then, like, bring this pen back. And they just ignore me. Which they should. Most people should ignore me. The next one is a similar type pen, but it's gel. And it's maybe one of the best pens on the market that gets no love whatsoever. And it's the Zebra Sarasa Clip. It comes in 0.3, 0.4, 0.5 millimeter tip sizes. It comes in, what, 20 different colors?

'''Anna Reinert:''' Mm-hmm.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' The tip is very sharp and very clean. It's a writing style that I like. I love that pen. I always talk about the Uniball Sino DX 0.38 as my favorite gel ink pen. And that's true. Or my favorite one to recommend to people getting into those type of pens. But, man, the Sarasa Clip, it gets no love just because it's in a very competitive category, I guess.

'''Anna Reinert:''' It is. It's a hard place to compete. I did not put that on my list because you put it on your list. I totally agree. Yeah, in the sort of competitive world of the Zebra Sarasa, the Uni, the, wow, my brain just totally got on me. High Tech C. Yeah, High Tech C.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' DX.

'''Anna Reinert:''' Yeah, the Uni Sino DX. You know, people talk about the other two a lot more, but Zebra is a genuine competitor. And, you know, I mean, it's just a nice pen. It's a little, the sort of overall design is a little bit simpler in some cases, which I find appealing if you're going to have just sort of a plastic dust pen.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Exactly. And they have a killer green. They have the best green on the market, I think. That's not a lime green.

'''Anna Reinert:''' The lime green or the dark green?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' No, I like the dark green, the Viridian green.

'''Anna Reinert:''' Oh, I don't have that one yet.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Oh, it is excellent. Now, the DX has the best lime green, I think. The best bright colors are on the DX side. The Sarasa clip, I use blue-black, I use Viridian green, and I use, I think they call their orange Mandarin.

'''Anna Reinert:''' That is a good orange.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' It's excellent. Those three, I use those three religiously. Those never go out of style. I love that pen, and it's great. It's a good price point. The only knock with Zebra has always been, if you're a heavy, heavy rider, their gels run out of ink reasonably quickly in relation or comparison to the other brands. But it's no big deal. I mean, it just is what it is. It's a great pen. Yep. Last one I brought up.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' It's definitely still made. And this was a pen I used for years and kind of stopped using. But it's the Uniball Jetstream Alpha. And it's the one, it's like the black matte with the big Alpha Joe grip on it. And it comes with a 0.7 millimeter refill when you order it. But why I like it is because I swap it out for the 0.5 or the 0.38 refills. Those are my favorite Jetstream refills. The 0.7 is awesome too. But that's a pen that I end up recommending a lot to a lot of people over the years. And I really haven't talked about it much in the past year or two. But it's still a go-to pen. It's still available at places like JetPens and things like that. It's not something you're going to find in the store. But it's a really good pen. And it's a little more expensive. It's like a $13-ish pen or so. But it's an excellent pen. It can take a beating. I've used it for years. And it needs to come back out of the desk into the backpack more frequently. Because I like those super fine Jetstream refills.

'''Anna Reinert:''' That review is very old. It's 2008. And it was when you were using your reporter. Yeah. Your Moleskine reporter.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Those were the days, huh? Wow. That takes you back. I actually went back through my archives through 2007 and 2008 until I finally stopped. And I was like, wow. This Alpha Gel was one of the first pens I reviewed. And I still love this pen. So that pen has withstood the test of time.

'''Anna Reinert:''' That's awesome.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Mm-hmm. All right. So that's my list. What do you have?

'''Anna Reinert:''' Okay. On my list, oddly, three out of four are liquid ink pens. But this goes back again, I think, to me being left-handed. And I also realized I haven't reviewed most of them.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Isn't that the truth? I do that. I'm awful about that. I love this pen. I love this pen. Where's your review? Oh, yeah. I haven't reviewed it yet.

'''Anna Reinert:''' That's right. The first one I put on my list was basically sort of the first pen that I found that I was like, okay, this is why people like pens. And it was the Pilot Precise V5. Because up until then, I mean, like, I found that when I was in high school, you know, before that, it was ballpoints or pencils. And that was really sort of your options for, you know, writing your school papers and stuff. And I found the V5 and I was like, where can I get more of these? Looking for a dealer.

'''Anna Reinert:''' But, and I've never written a review about it because I guess I kind of figured it's like any office supply pen. Everybody's used one. But, you know, for a liquid ink, it's almost a needle tip size. As a lefty, it doesn't let me down. I can write with it. Even though it does have a bit of a rollerball tip, I've never had any problems with them. So, and the interesting thing is the V7s, I do have trouble with.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Oh, that's interesting.

'''Anna Reinert:''' Isn't that weird?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah, very.

'''Anna Reinert:''' So, but sort of the modern, for me, the sort of modern equivalent, the one that sort of ended up in my, you know, my pencil case every day is the Morning Glory Mach 3s, which are sort of like somebody took a V5 and said, hey, let's make this a little better. You know, and it's available in a bunch of different colors. It's a little bit finer tip. And it's so fun. And every time I use it, I feel like I'm, you know, I finally found my pen dealer.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Like, yay. Yeah, they did a really good job with that pen. I've been impressed every time I've used it.



== Unusual Pens ==


'''Anna Reinert:''' Yeah, they're really good. But the next one that's on my list is a pen that sort of speaks to what we were talking about, like pens that work great for our specialty purpose that I don't think anybody ever really talks about. And it's the Pilot Envelope Address Writing Jelly Ink Pen. I personally like the extra fine. The fine is a little broad, strangely enough, for a Japanese pen. But it's an oil-based gel ink pen that is waterproof when it's dry. And it is super slick on paper. But it gives you a really nice fine point and is great anytime you actually need to make sure something's not going to bleed when it gets wet, like addressing an envelope or writing your return address on an envelope. So you can run out of ink in those really fast. But if you write letters, like as often as I do, I tend to use it to address the envelope just to make sure that should the mail get wet or it hangs out of somebody's mailbox, it's not going to bleed ink all over everything.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah, that's perfect. Two things on that pen. One, the black ink is pitch black. It is super dark. Number two, that is one of the coolest ugly barrels I have ever seen. I love the barrel of this pen. I just love the design of this pen. Totally.

'''Anna Reinert:''' It has Japanese writing all over it. I have no idea what it says. No idea. But it is, yeah, it's a white barrel with like red and blue lettering all over it.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' And I just love the feel of it. I mean, it's just this, it's just a, you know, basic plastic barrel pen. But something about that pen, I really, really like the design of.

'''Anna Reinert:''' And every once in a while, I, you know, like it's the, it's the thing that I add to my JetPens cart to get over $25.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' That one more thing.

'''Anna Reinert:''' I'm like, I'm sure I need another one. Absolutely. And occasionally they'll be out of the extra fine and I'll order a fine. And I'm always like, darn it, this thing is too wide.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. And that's the thing I have noticed about that pen. It's, yeah, only, I can only use the extra fine on that one because of the, I don't know what it is with the sizing. It may just be the ink properties too that are, that make the really wide lines. But great pen. Good, good call on that one.

'''Anna Reinert:''' It is a good pen. And, you know, the last one is I really like the gel multi pens.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah.

'''Anna Reinert:''' I, I use a Uniball style fit and a Zebra Sarasa pre-fill every day. Those are the two pens that sit on my desk and are my favorites if I know I'm going to a meeting because I have colors. Like you sit in a meeting long enough and it's like, you can really, you know, if you sketch note, you've got a bunch of colors to play with. If you just want to be able to like underline something in a bright color or if you want to make really funny pictures of the people in the meeting. But yeah, and I, both of those and I use them all the time. And I know at some point you had said something about one of them. If you let it sit too long and the ink sort of dried out or you had trouble getting it going.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' The Coleto actually does that.

'''Anna Reinert:''' Oh, the Coleto. Well, that's not one in my list.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yep.

'''Anna Reinert:''' Part of it is I think both the Uniball style fit and the Zebra Sarasa pre-fills. I went for the ones that had like the five color option. I'm like, I want as many in here as I can get. But so I've got four colors plus a pencil, plus the 0.5 pencils. Oh, cool. In both of mine that I have. And I actually, to be honest, I think I have several of the Uniball style fits. I just, I keep buying them. And they're not, I mean, they're, they're just a plain plastic barrel. They're pretty wide because they're the five barrel. So they're pretty substantial. But, you know, you've got, you've got multicolored. So you can have your true stayed black or blue or blue black. And then you can have red and orange and purple and whatever other color you want in there. And I also means if I'm in a long meeting, I'm not going to run out of ink.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' That's true.

'''Anna Reinert:''' Because they do kind of go through cartridges pretty fast.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. Yeah. You can on those, on the gel multi-pins for sure. And that's a, that's a good point. I didn't even think about that. I was such a hardcore Coleto user for years and years and years. And that kind of just dropped off the radar for me. I think maybe I need to refresh my refills because I have, I have barrels. I probably have 10 Coleto barrels laying around, but I need a, I need a refill update and get me, get me back on the, back on the bandwagon for the gel multi-pins. But that's excellent. Cool. Cool. Well, awesome. I'm glad we did that because it, I don't know. It just goes to show how many great pins and products are out there. And it's, it's funny how like attached I get to some of these older products. Like if I haven't used it in a while and I go break out, you know, some random pin that I haven't used in a while, but I know it's a good pin. It's such a great experience for me. I don't know. I'm silly that way, but I guess that's why I write a blog about pins. Right.

'''Anna Reinert:''' But that's okay. I'm thinking, you know what, this is making me think that we need to have our very own version of throwback Thursday. Okay. Where we sort of either you, if you've never written a review about an old favorite, I think it's time we, we pulled some out.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' I like that idea.

'''Anna Reinert:''' All right.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Oh, that's a good idea.

'''Anna Reinert:''' I'll finally write my pilot precise review if anybody cares.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Well, awesome. Ana, I really appreciate you coming on and it's always a pleasure and, you know, filling in for Myke this week, but you're welcome on here any day, any time, any hour.

'''Anna Reinert:''' Anyway, thank you so much. It's always so much fun to do this show. And, um, the only bummer is that it means I can't listen to it tomorrow because I will have already heard it.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Oh no, I still go, I still go back and listen, um, just to kind of see, you know, if I catch something, I don't know that I missed the first time or I sometimes, you know, like I made a mistake last week. I, uh, I called, what did I say? I said the TWSBI night sky edition when I was talking about the TWSBI rock one time, I was like, I don't even remember saying that during the show. But when I listened to it after, it's like, I can't believe I just said that, but no,

'''Anna Reinert:''' everybody knew what you meant.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. Yeah. Well, thanks for having, thanks. Thanks for having me on.

'''Anna Reinert:''' Anytime. You can come on your show anytime.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Thanks. I appreciate that. So why don't you tell, why don't you tell everyone where they can find, uh, more of your wonderful writing?

'''Anna Reinert:''' Um, I can be found at wellappointeddesk.com. Um, you can, uh, talk to me on Twitter at well, a P P T desk, um, and app.net. I am at a N a.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Awesome. And you can find me at pen addict.com or as Myke likes to remind me, you can also find me at the pen addict.com. And, uh, you can find me on Twitter at dowdyism, D O W D Y I S M. And we will have the show notes at five by five dot TV, TV slash pen addict slash one Oh nine. And, uh, this'll be a good one to check out all the notes on. We've got, uh, lots of cool stuff we talked about. So thanks Anna for joining me and we will talk to you soon.

'''Anna Reinert:''' Say goodbye, Brad.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Goodbye, Brad.

[[Category:Podcast Transcripts]]
[[Category:The Pen Addict Podcast Transcript]]